Remember them
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Ned Forney, Writer, Saluting America's Veterans
Poster based in
South Korea
·
April 13, 2019 ·
Shot down by a North Korean MiG fighter . . .
On April 15, 1969, a US Navy EC-121 four-engine, propeller-driven reconnaissance plane, with 31 Americans and nearly six tons of electronic equipment on board, was flying on a routine intelligence-gathering mission over the Sea of Japan when disaster struck.
The EC-121, on a flight plan similar to 200 other US Navy and Air Force reconnaissance planes over the previous three months, was six hours into its mission when two North Korean MiGs suddenly approached.
Flying at supersonic speed, the enemy fighters, armed with 23mm cannons and air-to-air missiles, “engaged” the unarmed and unescorted US Navy plane. Seconds later the EC-121, located at least sixty miles off the coast of North Korea and in international waters, disappeared from US radar.
The North Korean pilots, for no apparent reason and without warning, had shot down the American plane, killing the entire crew of 30 sailors and one Marine.
According to the North Korean government, the EC-121, with the call sign “Deep Sea 129,” had committed a "grave provocation of infiltrating deep into the territorial air space of the republic.” North Korea proclaimed that its Air Force had acted appropriately and had “scored a brilliant battle success of shooting it down with a single shot at a high altitude..."
Ships and search and rescue planes scoured the debris-strewn crash site for days, but only two bodies and “pieces of fuselage, cabin interior, seat parts and covers, cigarette packs, AirNav logs, and a white suitcase with name ‘John A. Miller CTSN’ on it” were recovered.
US President Richard Nixon responded by activating Task Force-71 (TF-71), a fleet of US Navy ships that included the aircraft carriers Enterprise, Ticonderoga, Ranger, and Hornet, the battleship New Jersey, and numerous cruisers and destroyers. TF-71 would play a key role in protecting the international waters and air space of future reconnaissance flights.
In the end, no direct action was taken in response to the downing of the EC-121 and loss of American lives. Nixon, consumed by the Vietnam War (the number of American military personnel in Vietnam peaked in April at 543,000), however, promised the American people, ”They’ll never get away with it again . . ."
Today we honor the 31 men of Deep Sea 129 who gave their lives serving their country during the Cold War. We will always remember you:
LCDR James H Overstreet
LT John N Dzema
LT Dennis B Gleason
LT Peter P Perrottey
LT John H Singer
LT Robert F Taylor
LTJG Joseph R Ribar
LTJG Robert J Sykora
LTJG Norman E. Wilkerson
Louis F Balderman, ADR2
Stephen C Chartier, AT1
Bernie J Colgin, AT1
Ballard F Connors, Jr, ADR1
Gary R DuCharme, CT3
Gene K Graham, ATN3
LaVerne A Greiner, AEC
Dennis J Horrigan, ATR2
Richard H Kincaid, ATN2
Marshall H McNamara, ADRC
Timothy H McNeil, ATR2
John A Miller, CT3
John H Potts, CT1
Richard T Prindle, AMS3
Richard E Smith, CTC
Philip D Sundby, CT3
Richard E Sweeney, AT1
Stephen J Tesmer, CT2
David M Willis, ATN3
Hugh M Lynch, SSGT, USMC
Frederick A. Randall, CTC
James Leroy Roach, AT1